Our VP is gone

The lone VP from the group of GSG alums left Korea to work in the US. He was our client on two projects, and will be missed as a supporter of our group. He had a going away lunch and put on quite a show. Someone put on Surfing USA by the Beach Boys and he performed a bit of karaoke (in front of over 100 people). Members of the GSG gave him a care package of some of the things they knew he would miss from Korea
- Kimchi
- Yogiyo button (a button in every restaurant that summons the wait staff!)
- Slippers for the office (it is normal to see a Korean wearing slippers around the office, dress shoes are overrated!)
- Korean beef (you should see the protests going on over here involving that, and it seems comical until you realize the beef is not the real issue...of course bringing a hibachi to the protests might not make friends though...)
- Toothbrush, to remind him of the Korean hygenie (everyone brushes their teeth after lunch, presumably due to all of the garlic and kimchi they just had...)

As too many of my friends leave Korea, I always have to ask "what will you miss most about Korea?" Answers seem to range from types of food, the size of our apartments, to the stories. Yes, the stories that most of us admit we wouldn't believe unless we lived here. And even then it took a little while for us to realize, "did that just happen?"

It is funny to hear stories from people as they are leaving. "Going to be strange to be working for a normal company again." We are not used to the following: "trash cans by your desk, flying business class, eating lunch at your desk, a crazy security system that won't let you out of a building with anything that says confidential on it (even if it is your own document that you prepared and you are returning to your office from a client site." Ah yes, Korean business...